


blossom

by taeku



Category: GOT7, K-pop
Genre: M/M, a lot of ellipses i am sorry, but happy at the same time, but i love those, mention of panic attacks and suicide, my heart hurts, short love story, this is kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 15:46:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15952496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeku/pseuds/taeku
Summary: No one in this world is perfect. No one can say that they didn’t make mistakes, did bad things or say things they regret. It’s by making mistakes that we learn. It’s by talking about those same mistakes that we grow up.





	blossom

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday present for @nymphea_junguwu on twitter  
> I wrote it in limited time so i am sorry if this is bad  
> even if this doesn't really make sense in term of story telling, i am quite satisfied with it  
> fxxx i'm twenty, i hope you like it otherwise i am deleting my existence

Being in love isn’t the best thing in life.  
Being in love isn’t the ultimate accomplishment.

But having someone is nice. Having a hand to hold and a body to lay on and ears that listen is nice.

Having Jinyoung, Jackson thinks, is nice.

As he’s resting his head on his shoulder, Jackson looks up at Jinyoung, who’s still sleeping. His breath is steady, slow, peaceful. Jackson always loved watching him sleep, see this soft part of him. It’s calming, even more than is usual serious attitude. He looks at him, and suddenly, it hits him. It hits him when it shouldn’t.

Jackson loves Jinyoung. He loves him. It’s not a brutal and overwhelming feeling. It’s rather sweet, a slow burn that runs through his whole body. From his hair roots to his toes, the end of his fingers, he feels love entirely. He smiles. This feeling, he never thought he would feel it so hard and good again. Yet here he is, cuddling what might be the love of his life.

Jackson’s been in love before, but never has he feel love this deep.

 

-

 

_[Then]_

It’s hard, not having the ability to walk properly anymore. It’s hard to see people running around you and not being able to join them. It’s hard but you get used to it. You get used to the loose and the envy laying in your stomach. Jackson smiles. He smiles like he always did, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same because it doesn’t reach his eyes anymore. It doesn’t sound the same. Doesn’t taste like it used to taste. But it’s ok. You get used to it.

You get used to it. And you move on.

Jackson is sitting, looking up at the starts shining on his ceiling. There’s twelve of them. They form a tiny cat head and they all have the same size. They shine green, sometimes blue or purple. He can see them from the corner of his eyes when he’s on his side. He can count them when he panics, when the pain is too much, when he can’t do anything but cry until he can’t breathe. He counts the stars on his ceiling, and the stars on his forearm, when he’s outside. He tattooed them when he understood that nothing else helped him calm down.

There’s a knock on his door. A beat. A head popping.

“Dinner’s ready” his brother says.

Nodding, he gets up, takes his crutches and gets out. Youngjae looks at him go, not saying anything. It takes exactly one minute to get to the kitchen. One minute, thirteen stairs and fifteen steps. Then it takes them twenty minutes to eat, ten to clean up (not that Jackson can really help but he still tries), then fifteen steps, thirteen stairs and a minute to get back to his room.

That’s what he does. Counting. It helps with his anxiety. It takes away the pain of his leg, the pain in his harms and hands. But counting doesn’t help him stop the pain in his chest. Stop his family’s pain.

He sighs. Try reading the same book he started three months ago. A couple of minutes later, Youngjae knocks at his door again. A beat. A head popping.

“Hey” he says, a tiny smile on his face.

“Hey” Jacksons echoes, looking at him.

Awkwardly, his brother takes a step forward and stares at the floor for a second. Then “I need to get my car checked on tomorrow. Do you wanna, maybe, come with me?”

Jackson stares at him for a second, blinking.

“Why do you need me for?”

“Oh, well, you know” Youngjae breathes “Keep me company”

This isn’t the reason, they both know that. But they pretend they don’t. It hurts less, Jackson supposes. Keeping him company is bullshit because Youngjae doesn’t need company. He’s perfectly capable of doing things on his own. He’s perfectly capable of having his car checked on alone. But he wants Jackson to come with him. Because Jackson hasn’t left his room for the past four days, maybe five now, and he wants to get him out of here.

Jackson doesn’t want to go out. He doesn’t want to leave the security and comfort of his bed. But he will. Because he doesn’t want to worry his brother -and parents. So he smiles and says “yeas ok, why not, I’ll keep you company”. It takes twenty seconds for Youngjae to smile and say thank you.

Looking at the stars on his ceiling, Jackson counts.   

 

-

 

Days are getting warmer by the time, and Jackson hates it. He never likes the warm and hot feeling of spring and summer. He hates it even more now.

Looking through the car window, he watches as the city fly in front of him. People smile, talk, take and give calls, drink water. There’s a dog waiting for its owner to come back from the flower shop. There’s a kid pulling at his mother’s dress for more candies. It all seems casual and nice and _normal._

When he came out the front door, following Youngjae to his car, he could feel his mom’s eyes on him. He could imagine the smile on her face and that itself made the all thing worth it. So he’s here now, driving to some garage. He doesn’t show it, but deep down, he overthinks it. His stomach hurts, his heart is popping, there’s sweat on his forehead. He tries to swallow the panic. He really tries.

But what if.

Youngjae is talking, but he can’t really hear him. He plays all the scenarios. All the possibilities. The _what ifs_. It’s always the same, so he shouldn’t think like that, freak out like that, _be_ like that, but he can’t control it. He’s afraid. Probably always will be.

The place they go to is small. Youngjae told him that his friend’s father is the owner and that there’s only the two of them and one employee. So Jackson doesn’t have anything to worry about. There’s just three people. Nothing to worry about.

Once they’re parked, Jackson swallows. Breathing in deep, blinking, he tries not to think about anything.

_One_ , he counts. _Two. Three._

Once his crutches in hands, he gets out. _Four. Five. Six_. There’s a lot of cars here. With a lot of colors, but black and blue are the most visible. There’s a red one on the right. _Seven. Height._

“Hi, is anyone here?” Youngjae shouts “Jaebeom?”

After a couple of seconds, a head pops out of an office. It has dark hair, narrowed eyes and sharped jaws. A gentle smile on.

“Hi Youngjae, how have you been?”

Jaebeom, Jackson assumes, is tall. He wears a long-gone white t-shirt with jeans ripped at the knees. He sweats. _Nine. Ten._

“Been good thanks” Youngjae says. Then “This is my brother, Jackson. Jackson, this is Jaebeom, the friend I told you about”

Smiling (more like grimacing), Jackson tries to shake Jaebeom’s hand without making it awkward. Because, you know, it’s not easy with the crutches. But Jaebeom doesn’t seem to care. Doesn’t seem to even take attention to it. _Eleven. Twelve_. Clearing his throat, Jackson says “nice to meet you”. Youngjae takes the lead from here. He and Jaebeom talk about cars and servicing. Jackson looks at the cars some more. He stopped counting.

It takes half an hour for Youngjae’s car to be checked. Half an hour of sitting on chairs and doing small talk. Jackson used to be good at it. The small talks. But he lost the art of words some times ago. So now he just listens, nods, smiles sometimes. It’s enough to give the illusion and that’s all that matters.

They’re standing near the car now, ready to leave. Youngjae talks a little more with Jaebeom before opening his door.

“Ah Jinyoung! Finally!” Jaebeom shouts out of nowhere “You took your time getting those cylinders”

Jackson isn’t the type of person that get their breath taken away easily. He’s not the type that gets fluttered easily either. So when his eyes fall on the man walking towards them (Jinyoung, he assumes), he’s surprised to feel his breath stop, blocked in his lungs, his body frizzing and his heart missing a beat. Because Jinyoung, he thinks, is the most beautiful human he’s ever seen.

Doll is the first word Jackson has in mind when his eyes falls on him. All in angles and polisheness. Eyes small but bright, straight nose and pulpy lips. He walks like he owns the place and the people working in it, but there’s no arrogance in it. It’s just his way of being. Jackson can’t detach his eyes from him. He can’t stop starring at his shoulders, arms, torso, legs. And when he speaks, Jackson comes back to hearth.

“Ah sorry for that, they messed up the order”

When Jinyoung’s eyes catches Jackson’s, time stops. Counting isn’t an option anymore because thinking properly is impossible. They stare at each other for a minute before Jinyoung begins to trace Jackson’s body with his eyes. They follow the course of his shoulders, his arms, his hands thigh around the crutches.

Jackson feels is entire body shiver when, with a blink of an eye, Jinyoung is staring at his leg. Or more like, staring at the leg he no longer has.

And at this moment, at this very, exact moment, Jackson never felt more disgusting.

 

-

 

Jackson’s mom begged him. She begged him to use the prostatic leg they made for him. She begged and begged for months before Jackson couldn’t take it anymore. So he left. He went to a friend’s house, didn’t talk to his family for a whole two months before they got the message. He didn’t talk to them until they understood they couldn’t force him into wearing a fake leg. He just couldn’t do it.

So he never wore it. It’s rotting in one of his closets, hidden under a pile of old sport cloths. He never thinks about it. Never mention it. Never look at it. He tried though, at the beginning. He really tried and wanted to make it right. But it was too much. He didn’t have the courage. The strength. The pain was also too much. It wasn’t a real pain, because that was long gone. His leg was perfectly fine, beautifully cicatrized, but the mental pain, the idea of the pain, the panic was too much.

But for some reasons, this morning, when he woke up, he got the leg out. He took it in his hands, weighted it, felt it. For some reasons, he thought about it again. Then he shook his head and hide it again.

He falls from the stairs getting down for breakfast. It isn’t the first time it happens. He would fall sometimes. It gets him every time. He fell again and worried his mother again and had to go to the hospital _again_ because what if he has a concussion.

So here he is again. Sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, his mother right next to him, tapping her foot. Jackson doesn’t hate hospitals, but he dislikes them. The time he spent there for his leg to get better was enough for a life time, he thinks. It’s all white and unwelcoming and full of distress. Jackson is a happy person. He likes to smile and laugh and make other people laugh by doing stupid faces. In hospitals, it’s hard to do that.

Of course, it’s not all sad and gloomy all the time but it’s not the happiest place either. When his doctor sees him, she doesn’t say anything, just nods at his mother and tells him to follow her.

“Do you want me to come?” his mother asks, already getting up, but Jackson stops her.

“No, I’m going alone. No need to infantilise me more”

He regrets his words the moment he says them, but he can’t stand the way his mother is constantly on his back, watching his every move. He’s tired of it.

It takes twenty-five seconds and forty steps to get to the auscultation room. Ten seconds for Jackson to sit on the table, leg hanging.

“Why are you here for today?” the doctor asks, looking at him with tired eyes.

“I fell again”

He doesn’t feel anything saying it to her. She was his assigned doctor when he was in recovery, so she knows him like the back of her hand. She nods and stars asking him the same questions she always asks when she sees him. Do you feel dizzy? Does your head hurts? Do you see double? Are your fingers tingly? How do you feel? How stable your mental health is?

At the end of it, Jackson has counted to eight hundred and six. His hands are clammy but he feels neutral, somehow. Not extremely anxious. He takes a deep breath. Looks up at his doctor.

“I think” he says, before clearing his throat “I think I am ready for rehab now”

 

-

 

Thinking about it now, Jackson never realised how quiet he became. He never realised that him isolating himself in his room for days made the house different.

Before, he was always the first one to wake up, the first one to say hello, did you sleep well, hope you have a nice day today. He was always the one making breakfast and complaining when Youngjae took is place in the shower. He used to laugh a lot with his brother and take care of his mother. But now, everything has changed. No one talked at dinner anymore. No one makes breakfast for others. No one laugh.

Jackson didn’t realise that until now. Until he started laughing with Youngjae again. Until his mother cooked him his breakfast every morning. The emptiness that filled the house slowly faded away.

It’s been three months now. Three months of him going to rehab and learning how to walk again. Three months since he started to accept the fact that having a prosthetic leg doesn’t make him less.

His mother cried when, at dinner, he said he was ready to give it a try.

His trainer is a very nice woman. Tall and flexible, with a bright and soft smile. She always gives him nice looks when he feels down and helpless at moments. Meeting other people like him, others that went through the same thing helped him more than he ever thought it would. He spoke to them, listened and shared. He learned and grew up.

Three months seem like nothing to most people, but for Jackson, those three months worthen a life time.

He made a good friend of another patient, Mark. They met at Jackson’s first training session and never left each other since then. And honestly, Jackson isn’t sure that, without Mark being there and supporting him, he would have kept his promise.

“How do you do it alone?” Jackson once asked Mark, when they went out one night. Summer was almost there and they felt like going out and enjoying the nice weather. They didn’t go to clubs or bars, since Jackson wasn’t confident enough to go there, so they were sitting on a bench is some park in middle of town.

A beer in hands, Jackson didn’t look up at Mark when he spoke. He didn’t know why, but he felt fragile again.

“I am not alone” Mark responded with a smile in his voice.

Confused, Jackson frowned. Mark had no family. He lost them in a car crash when he was eighteen. So hearing him say that he wasn’t alone made him question.

“I have you” Mark then added “And Crystal, BamBam and Yugyeom. I have my friends from college. I was never alone”

His words enter Jackson like pike. He felt guilty, all of a sudden. He always thought he was alone in this. Always thoughts that no on could truly understand and support him. He was wrong, obviously. His family had his back, always will. His old friends were still there too. No one abandoned him after his accident. He was the one who left.

 

-

 

When he was 22, Jackson got run over. He got run over and when he woke up, his right leg was gone. When he woke up, he was a completely different person.

When he was 24, Jackson tried to kill himself. He swallowed the entire bottle of pain killers his doctor had gave to him to ease the pain in his leg. When he woke up, he found part of himself again.

When he was 25, he learned to walk again. He fell in love. He got himself back.

 

-

 

When he saw Jinyoung again, he almost didn’t recognize him. It’s been months since he first saw him, and seeing him again wasn’t has hard as before. It wasn’t as hard because he wasn’t so afraid anymore.

It was during Youngjae’s birthday party. Since his brother was friend with Jaebeom, he was friend with Jinyoung by instant. So they came and celebrated and laughed. It wasn’t a big party. Youngjae was never fond of those, but there were still at least twenty people. Most of the faces Jackson didn’t know, but that was ok because it was Youngjae moment.

Jackson was sitting in the patio, a bear in hand, watching his brother having fun, dancing with his friends, playing games. Since summer was here, it was hot, even at night. But still, Jackson didn’t feel confident enough to wear shorts.

As he was thinking about nothing in particular, he felt someone sitting next to him. Slowly, he turned over. Jinyoung was right there, a little smile on his face, looking at him with lights in his eyes.

“Hey” he said, taking a sip of whatever beverage he was drinking.

Jackson didn’t respond right away. He was too taken aback by the sudden apparition. But he cleared his throat at some point, blinking, and said “hi” back.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but birthdays are supposed to be fun, right?” Jinyoung asked then, not letting his eyes go anywhere else than Jackson’s face.

Fluttered, Jackson nodded, said “Indeed” and took another sip of his bear.

“Why aren’t you having fun then?”

Jackson was having fun. Secretly. He was just discrete about it.

“Why aren’t you?” he asked back.

“I am having fun” Jinyoung smiled “With you”

And it was as simple as that.

Jackson doesn’t actually know when he fell in love with Jinyoung. He doesn’t know, and to be honest, he doesn’t really care. But what matters isn’t to know when, but to know, simply know, that you’re in love.

Maybe he fell in love that night, during Youngjae’s birthday party. Maybe he fell in love when, after two months of talking, calling, meeting, Jinyoung finally kissed him. Maybe it was when they hold hands in the park. When they went to that one Italian restaurant and Jinyoung ruined is new shirt with tomato sauce. Jackson laughed so hard that night he almost couldn’t breathe.

Maybe it was when, after they had sex for the first time, Jinyoung told him how beautiful he looked. Even with his missing leg.

Or maybe it was the combination of all of those moments. Little pieces that join other little pieces to form a final, big piece.

 

-

 

[Now]

When Jinyoung wakes up, his first reflex is too look down. To look at Jackson. They smile at each other before Jackson says “hey”. Jinyoung hum in response, sighing in this deep, long way of his, before snuggling some more into Jackson. A couple of second later, little tiny kisses are left on his neck. Jackson laughs, leans his head some more so that Jinyoung has better access.

Jinyoung likes to play with Jackson’s neck. He likes to give it small kisses, little taps with his fingers, light pressures with the palm of his hand. In general, Jinyoung can’t keep his hands to himself. He always has to touch Jackson. On the thighs, shoulders, hips, hands, hair. It’s a habit of his. And Jackson isn’t complaining.

When they start kissing, not minding morning breathe, Jackson melts. Jinyoung has this way of kissing him slow and deep that makes his insides burn. He feels so warm and protected and safe. That’s a feeling he doesn’t want to let go of.

Jackson believes he fell in love with Jinyoung when they fought for the first time. Even though it was Jackson’s fault, at the time, he didn’t want to admit it. For time to time, Jackson feels like shit. Real, deep shit. He feels like he’s not worthy, undesirable, disgusting. Sometimes, he has panic attacks. And he hates it. Even more when there’s an audience. When he had his panic attack that day, Jinyoung was there. It wasn’t the first time that happened and that’s exactly why Jackson couldn’t take it anymore.

When he felt better, when he could breathe normally again, he got mad. He got mad at himself, for having stupid, _stupid_ panic attacks. He got mad at the world because why the fuck is Jinyoung always there when he’s miserable? Why he fuck can’t he be strong and happy when his boyfriend is with him?

He wanted to end things here, back then. He told Jinyoung it was a bad idea that they were together. He told him that he couldn’t give him what he needed to be happy. He said “I am not good enough” and “you deserve someone that is here for you”.

Jinyoung makes Jackson happy. By smiling when looking at the TV, by sneezing a little bit too loud, by sending him weird photos and videos. Everything is simple with Jinyoung. All those little things that look futile make him the happiest. But nothing is simple with Jackson. Because what can he give him? Can he make him happy? Can he make him feel safe? Can he make him feel loved? All those questions would turn in his head over and over and over again until he couldn’t bear with them.

Jinyoung disagreed with that, obviously, but Jackson didn’t want to hear anything. He didn’t want to hear Jinyoung say that yes, he was enough, that yes, he made Jinyoung happy, happier than anyone else. He didn’t want to listen to Jinyoung saying how much he loved and cared about him, even when he wasn’t the most stable person. Those were details, for Jinyoung. Panic attacks, dark thoughts, prostatic leg. Details. Just pieces of him that didn’t stop Jackson to be an entire person, with qualities he couldn’t see or understand.

No one ever talked to Jackson like that. No one ever told him those kinds of things. No one ever cried saying they loved him. That’s when Jackson understood. That’s when he knew that yes, he was capable of making someone happy and comfortable, even though he wasn’t perfect.

No one in this world is perfect. No one can say that they didn’t make mistakes, did bad things or say things they regret. It’s by making mistakes that we learn. It’s by talking about those same mistakes that we grow up.

As Jinyoung kisses his torso and stomach, Jackson smiles. He smiles and thanks himself for accepting who he is now. He thanks himself to not be so afraid anymore.

 

-

 

Jackson’s been in love before, but never has he feel love that deep. Never has he feel this confident and never did he love himself more.

You don’t need anyone to love yourself. You don’t need anyone to be confident. But sometimes, somehow, having people that are here for you and encourage you being your best and true self is just what you need to blossom.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up in the dms (__@babybird_)


End file.
